


It Gets Better

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 00:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A study in Sherlock. Inspired by the It Gets Better movement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Gets Better

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the It Gets Better Project, a series of videos made by real people everywhere reminding us all, especially the troubled and abused, that it does, in fact, get better.
> 
> One of the reasons I wrote this is because I was bullied as a child and as a teen. Absolutely relentlessly. I was assaulted and alienated on a regular basis, for no reason other than I was a smart girl, a late bloomer and... just me. And the adults around me (with the exception of my parents) did little to intervene. Somehow, I got through it, though not entirely unscathed. It stays with you, that sort of thing. You never forget it.
> 
> But it does get better. And that's what this is about.
> 
> Thank you.

"Right."

He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and fiddled with his laptop, adjusting the angle of the little camera built into the display until his head was centered on the screen. Frowning, he settled back and stared for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He hated the way he looked in video, but that didn't matter right now. Still, he ran a hand through his hair, making it more frenzied than before, licked his lips and began to speak.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes. I am a consulting detective in London. I am twenty-nine years old." He cleared his throat and was silent for a moment, thinking. "I turn thirty in January. I've a brother, seven years my senior, but we're not going to talk about him because he's a git.

"When I was three years old, I found a dead squirrel under the tree in our garden. I wanted to know what it looked like on the inside, so I took it into the house, put it on our kitchen table, and cut it open with a kitchen knife. My parents thought this was abnormal behaviour for a child - not sure how curiousity is abnormal - so they took me to doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists, attempting to diagnose just what, besides the obvious, might make a child dissect a squirrel on the kitchen table. Autism, conduct disorder, personality disorders - I, apparently, defied definition. Eventually, when I was seven, these so-called experts whom my parents paid handsomely for their pithy advice decided that, based on my impatience with them and distinterest in their silly tests and questions, and the aforementioned incident with the squirrel, I displayed sociopathic tendencies.

"As if that were a bad thing."

He shifted positions, drawing his spidery legs up until his knees touched his chin, wrapping his arms around himself. He glanced across the room, took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the little camera.

"I didn't like other children. They were dull, boring. They didn't like me because I was odd. Clever. I understood things they could never begin to fathom. I didn't want to play their silly games. I didn't care about sport, or what was playing on the radio, or - later on - who was caught snogging who behind the gymnasium. The things that interested me - knowledge, information, science - versus what entertained them served to form a great divide between myself and my peers. Clearly I was different from them, and in the great tradition of people who fear the unknown, my peers reacted as you might expect.

"I was bullied. Constantly."

He paused.

"At first it was only abuse shouted from a distance. You know the sort: berk, prat, twat. The usual language of the unimaginative. I had no one I could call a friend; people tended to avoid me and for the most part I did not mind, except when I did. I remember thinking that sometimes it might have been nice to have someone else to talk to other than my parents and brother - remember, he's a git. Even the anti-social can get lonely, once in a while.

"As we grew older, it became less about who I was and more about what they'd decided I must be. Shirt-lifter, queer, poof, slag. I'd be cornered after school, taunted and teased and occasionally pushed around. My books were stolen and found burnt in a skip. People spat on me. In uni, my peers hated me. Granted, I did little to endear myself to them, but it wasn't my intention. I was under the impression that in university knowledge would be appreciated, and I would finally be liked for what I can do. I was mistaken, and instead of making friends I received more of the same: queer, slag, cocksucker.

"They'd no idea, of course. None of these idiots knew me well enough to have any insight as to where my preferences lay. They just assumed that because I was different I must be gay, because in their insignificant little brains, to be gay is somehow, in some way, an insult. To be odd is to be gay is to be wrong, somehow. That seems to be the accepted equation.

"It's bollocks, of course. You should know that, but in case you do not: it is one hundred percent bollocks."

From the kitchen he could hear the tinkling of mugs being taken out of the cupboard, the hiss of the kettle heating up. He lowered both legs, feet planted firmly on the floor in front of him, and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, looking urgently into the camera.

"It went on for years. Decades. There were good days when I could ignore it, when something else was more interesting than the utter shit spewed at me by mouth-breathing morons. Then there were moments when I felt I could not endure another day of it. On those days I did things, admittedly stupid things, to drown it all out. I wouldn't recommend these methods. Too expensive, quite messy and ultimately unfulfilling. Not worth your time.

"However, it still happens. Even adults can be as stupid as children. People I work with, people whose problems I solve, they see nothing wrong with calling me such creative endearments such as freak or psychopath. I am neither of those things, of course. I am many things, but I am not those things, but while I know this as an incontrovertible truth, it does not mean..."

He swallowed hard.

"It does not mean those words do not hurt as much as they always have done."

A mug of tea is pressed into his hands. He accepts it gratefully and takes a sip, wetting his mouth. He licks sweetness from his lips and looks down at the cup in his hands.

"Today I solved the case of a fourteen year old boy found dead in his parents' garage. They contacted me because they were convinced someone had murdered their son. It never occurred to them that he could have killed himself - which is in fact what he had done. Because he was tired of the abuse he endured from his schoolmates. Because no one had ever told him one simple thing, something that might very well have prevented his death. No one told him that it gets better.

"And so here I am, making a video to put on the internet so that the rest of you know, and understand, that it does. Get better."

He sighed.

"It may take a long time. Months, years even. You may think you've nothing left in you to carry on. There may still be vicious words and terrible people all around you. Ignorance is unfortunately often terminal. As cruel as the human race is to the world around it, we are never so cruel as we are to each other. This is our reality, you and I. That it is us against the world that does not understand us and does not want to accept us. It is a harsh reality and at times it may seem like it is not a reality you'd like to continue in. You may in fact want out. The thought crossed my mind at times, but I am glad that I never followed through.

"Because, as I have deduced, it does - and will - get better."

The cushion beside him dipped and a warm presence pressed up against his side. He leaned into it, closing his eyes at the gentle touch of lips to his temple.

"As I have discovered," he said, when he opened his eyes and smiled faintly at the camera, "sometimes all it can take is finding someone else who helps make it get better. A person who knows who you are and what you are and accepts you for all of it. For whom your flaws are a source of interest, not vitriol. An ally. A soldier to fight the war with you, your army.

"If you can wait it out for that, if you can find that person and keep them, then you've won. You've survived. You've endured."

He opened his eyes.

"Wait for this," he said. "It's worth it. I promise."

He reached out and pressed a key, clicked the camera off. The computer whirred quietly as it saved the video to the harddrive.

"That was lovely, Sherlock," said John against his ear. "Quite lovely." Sherlock sighed and turned his face into John's neck.

"Do you think it will help?" His voice was muffled against John's skin. "Do you think it makes any difference at all, saying these things?"

John smiled. Sherlock knew it without having to see it.

"I think so," he said. "For someone out there it will. For someone, it'll get better."

Sherlock considered John's words for a moment. He nodded.

"It did for me," he said, and drew John close.

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject  
> http://www.thetrevorproject.org/


End file.
